After weeks of speculation about SUNY Fredonia’s financial deficit and what it might mean for the school, Fredonia President Stephan H. Kolison Jr. on Wednesday presented a “road map for the future” – including discontinuing 13 low-performing degree programs that currently serve just 74 students.
Kolison, who came aboard as Fredonia president three years ago, said the university has operated with a structural deficit for longer than a decade and is working closely with SUNY and its governance partners on a plan to “right the ship.”
This year, it used “one-time monies” and $2.4 million in additional state funding to reduce a $17 million deficit to a current $10 million shortfall, he said.
“In short, our base expenditures simply far outweigh our revenues,” he added. “This is not sustainable.”
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Fredonia is among several smaller SUNY schools with years-long structural deficits, meaning their expenses greatly exceed their revenue. Kolison said Fredonia is a victim of demographic changes that hit many small colleges sooner than they have reacted.
Members of the SUNY Fredonia faculty union held a silent march on campus Tuesday to protest anticipated cuts in programs and staff to address a $17 million structural deficit.
Fredonia’s enrollment has dropped by about 40% since 2013, from 5,391 to 3,220, as schools like Fredonia compete for a shrinking pool of college-age students. But the number of employees at the university has dropped just 15% over the same span, from 704 to 597.
Kolison outlined a plan to restore financial sustainability to Fredonia by reducing spending while increasing growth and efficiency – including cutting its least popular programs.
Fredonia looked at its lowest performing degree programs in 2018 and considered discontinuing some, but held off. This year, it did another analysis, and the same programs came up short.
Fredonia will discontinue 13 low-enrolled degree programs, including French, art history and ceramics, while “teaching them out” to allow current students to complete their degrees, while no longer enrolling new students in the impacted majors, Kolison said.
The degrees being discontinued are:
- BA Visual Arts and New Media, Art History
- BA French
- BA French: Adolescence Education
- BS Industrial Management
- BS Mathematics: Middle Childhood Specialist (grades 5-9)
- BA Philosophy
- BA Sociology
- BA Spanish
- BA Spanish: Adolescence Education
- BFA Visual Arts and New Media, Ceramics
- BFA Visual Arts and New Media, Photography
- BFA Visual Arts New Media, Sculpture
- BSED Early Childhood (Birth - Grade 2)
In response to an ongoing need, SUNY Fredonia is adding a new master’s degree program in mental health counseling.
The plan will lead to cuts in faculty and staff, but Kolison said it is not yet possible to project how many employees may be affected “due to uncertainties in retirements and attrition through the next few years.” That also makes it difficult to calculate exactly how much savings the cuts will yield, he said.
He said the 13 targeted programs represent 15% of all majors at Fredonia, which currently have a combined enrollment of 74 students – fewer than 3% of the undergraduate student population, with a third of those students set to graduate this spring.
“Inclusion on this list does not reflect poorly on that program’s quality or its dedicated faculty and staff,” Kolison said. “As needed and as appropriate, courses in many of these areas will still be available to SUNY Fredonia students even after the major is no longer offered.”
Fredonia’s chapter of United University Professions, its faculty union, held a walk-out and silent march on Tuesday in anticipation of cuts to programs and associated staff.
UUP leaders have called on SUNY to use some of the $163 million in additional aid to SUNY schools that UUP successfully lobbied for in the governor’s 2023 budget to bail out 19 schools battling deficits, according to state UUP President Fred Kowal.
Both local SUNY schools have been seeking new presidents for most of this year after their former leaders stepped down.
Gov. Kathy Hochul allocated the $163 million among 29 campuses, with SUNY’s four university centers in Buffalo, Stony Brook, Albany and Binghamton getting about half, even though those schools are enjoying better financial health than many smaller campuses, Kowal said.
But SUNY says the schools with structural deficits, including SUNY Potsdam, SUNY Rockland, Buffalo State University and Fredonia, have bigger problems than a one-time bailout can solve. SUNY Chancellor John B. King Jr. has requested deficit-reduction plans for several schools, and SUNY is assisting with those plans.
Buffalo State recently said it is facing a $16.5 million deficit and imposed a hiring freeze, with its new president, Chance Glenn, scheduled to take over in July 2024. Buffalo State is already starting to implement a deficit reduction plan that includes new scholarship incentive that produced enrollment gains this year.
Kolison said Fredonia will not implement “a blanket hiring freeze, which would undermine our efforts to grow in strategic areas.”
Kolison also echoed SUNY’s stance that, “There is no one-shot funding that can paper over our structural budgetary issues.”
Besides discontinuing underperforming degree programs, Fredonia also intends to grow enrollment by adding in-demand programs that reflect the workforce needs of today’s employers.
Fredonia recently added a new master’s program in clinical mental health counseling, which will enroll its first cohort as soon as the spring 2024 semester and has just received SUNY approval for a new master’s in business administration program in accounting that will start admitting students in fall 2024.
Fredonia also is exploring adding programs in “growing sectors” including biotech and life sciences, renewable energies and electronics, Kolison said.
Fredonia has also launched a fundraiser, the Bicentennial Fund, to spur alumni giving leading up to its 200th anniversary in 2026 to increase revenue and provide support “strategically aimed at giving students access to a SUNY Fredonia degree and retaining them,” he said.
Fredonia will also look for ways to operate more efficiently, including sharing services with other SUNY schools and using technology, such as new AI recruiting and retention tools, to save on operating costs, Kolison said.
He said Fredonia’s deficit-reduction strategies and its new strategic plan for 2023-2028, dubbed “True Blue,” will mean adjusting to major changes in population trends, workforce needs and higher education.
“If we fail to adapt to these changes, we will be risking and squandering our future,” he said.
That is important because Fredonia also has a significant impact on the region’s economy.
“Fredonia’s economic impact is estimated at $330 million. Nearly half the total statewide impact – $157 million – is concentrated here in the local Fredonia-Dunkirk community,” he said. “This University has – and will always continue to be – a vital asset.”